Subject: LL-L: "Pronouns" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 06.JUN.1999 (03)

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From: "Ian James Parsley" <I.J.Parsley at newcastle.ac.uk>
Subject: Pronouns

It would make sense that the tendency for pronoun shift or
replacement is that the object (or "oblique") forms replace the
subject (or "direct") forms. This is because oblique (i.e.
not-subject/nominative forms) forms tend to level (e.g. English
"them", originally dative only but now also accusative), and then one
form becomes dominant and takes over from the subject by analogy -
which I hope makes sense.

Thus the English form "you" took over from "ye" as the subject form
as well as the oblique. We also see this tendency in forms such as
"it is me" (rather than "it is I" or even "It am I"), and very common
non-standard forms such as "me and Louise went to the fair" and so
on. Examples of this occur in non-Germanic Indo-European languages
too - consider "C'est moi" in French (thus an oblique form) where the
Latin requires a nominative/subject (as in Spanish "Soy yo").

Thus as language develops, the subject forms are the ones that suffer
loss. Already in Scots (in Ulster at least) they are only used if the
pronoun is the subject of the sentence and stands alone: thus "A gang
til (Sc. tae) tha shaws" but "me an him gangs til tha shaws" (we
needn't discuss the verb form here). One wonders if the subject forms
will be lost altogether (though interestingly the "ye"/"you"
opposition has remained in Scots but not in English).

Regards,
--------
Ian.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/1677

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